about us

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What we know

You love being outside and pottering in any garden. Garden centres are a destination for you, not just the cafe. You add gardening related purchases into your grocery trolley more often than not. Gardening books and magazines are your friend and constant coffee table companions. TV garden makeovers are your inspiration.

But getting round to actually gardening, growing food you can eat and enjoy sharing with your family and friends isn’t happening. Or if it is, not often enough. You’ve taken on too much and you’re overwhelmed. When you start, things go wrong, you don’t know how to fix them and it all becomes too hard. Your garden doesn’t look like you think it should and you want more than just silver beet. You don’t want to use sprays, fertiliser and pesticides but is that really possible?

What we believe

Growing food to eat is a pleasure and privilege everyone can enjoy. New Zealand has a bountiful and forgiving climate compared to many places on the planet. The opportunities to have a beautiful and productive outside space are huge. You can easily learn how to grow things to eat which your family will love and you’ll be proud to serve. You’ll feel healthier, happier and more content with an edible garden. You don’t need much space or time to get started, just a few basic skills and some enthusiasm. You need to see how it’s done in real life in Hawkes Bay, not in a TV studio or a magazine photo shoot.

What we do

We love helping you grow things to eat. The Kitchen Garden is in sunny Hawkes Bay and is the backdrop for a variety of gardening courses and workshops. If you’ve been on a course or workshop we’ll help with follow up guidance or provide personalised edible garden design and advice. The Kitchen Garden blog has ideas for creating an edible garden you’ll love and the Kitchen Garden provides regular columns for a number of publications including Wellington’s FishHead and Diabetes New Zealand magazines.

How we help

Join us for a course or workshop to learn how to make your edible garden the way you want it to be in a relaxed and hands-on environment. Small groups with plenty of time for lots of your questions and nearly as many answers. We’ve been welcoming gardeners since 2007. Whether you’ve been gardening for years or have never sown a seed before, you’ll leave inspired, reassured and enthusiastic.

Not sure if it’s for you? Or keen to treat someone to a course with a gift voucher? Drop us an email as we’d love to help.

Meet Rachel

I'm an enthusiastic gardener who loves eating things I've grown. Initally I grew and sold boxes of homegrown produce. When I couldn't satisfy the demand, I started teaching my customers how to grow their own. I teach, write, sew and cook. I'm also catching up on learning to play piano. More...